


Complex Equations of the Heart

by iguanastevens



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: ACAB - all cats are bastards, CSS footnotes, Established Relationship, Humor, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 22:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19895611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iguanastevens/pseuds/iguanastevens
Summary: Relationships come with rules, and Yuri often has the distinct impression that everyone knows what they are except him.Or: of mornings, new relationships, and hungry cats.





	Complex Equations of the Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FoxInDocs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxInDocs/gifts).



> Written for FoxInDocs, as a thank you for supporting Reproductive Choice Australia. 
> 
> **STORY FORMAT:** As someone who grew up on a steady diet of Terry Pratchett novels, I am irresistibly drawn to footnotes. In this fic (if I've gotten the code right), you can show/hide the footnotes by hovering over the ** symbols (desktop) or tapping on them (mobile). However, if you don't want to bother with that, they're not strictly vital to the story.

Yuri could usually predict how his day was going to go based on how he was woken up. It was like a horoscope, except useful. A shitty morning would almost always lead to a shitty day, a good morning would only sometimes lead to a shitty day, and a weird morning…

Well. Right there in the fucking name, isn’t it?

This morning, Yuri wasn’t dragged from sleep by Potya stepping on his face (excellent, a positive omen), his phone ringing (never good, always terrifying), or a knock at the door (very bad). It wasn’t even his alarm (neutral in its predictable irritation).

He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling as a raspy, wheezing squeal filled his flat. Yuri’s still-sleeping brain did its best to provide an explanation.

Fire alarm, no. Potya, no. His phone, no. A burglar… probably not. The kettle, n- _yes,_ the kettle. The _boiling_ kettle. A burglar using his kettle?

A sneeze punctuated the fading whistle, followed by a low voice - Otabek’s voice, excusing himself to the empty kitchen.

_Okay, weird morning it is_ , Yuri thought. It wasn’t bad-weird. It was arguably even good-weird since Otabek was making tea in Yuri’s kitchen in St. Petersburg. Maybe Otabek would bring him a cup, too – Ceylon, with enough honey to leave the mug sticky, and a slow, sleepy morning together.

He’d told Otabek to wake him up. Tea in bed would be almost as good as Potya nudging Yuri’s face until he pushed aside the blankets and petted her. He also had a standing rule that anyone who woke him up before ten on a holiday would be maimed and/or murdered, but Otabek knew that didn’t apply to him. Of course it didn’t, although now that Yuri thought about it, he couldn’t remember if he’d actually said so. It was just one of those unspoken things, right? The rules were different when you were dating. Everybody knew that.

Yuri was a little foggy on the exact details, but he was sure he’d heard that somewhere.

Not that it mattered. Yuri obviously wasn’t the sort of person to laze around in bed waiting for his long-distance, jetlagged boyfriend to make him breakfast. In fact, if Yuri hadn’t been so tired and flustered the night before, he would have remembered to set an alarm so he could have tea and fresh pastries ready when Otabek woke up.

Besides, Potya had realized that Yuri was awake, and he could see the plume of her tail in the corner of his eye as she elegantly wound her way around the piles of junk on his bedroom floor. She put her front paws on the side of the mattress and peered up at him with wide, pleading eyes.

“Mrrrp?” she mrrped.

Yuri kissed her forehead. “Yeah, yeah, you’re starving and neglected and all alone in the cold hard world.”

“Wrrrrmmaao,” she wrrrrmmaaoed. “Breeep?”

“Fine, fine, I’m getting up already.”

He dragged himself upright and took a few seconds to rub the crusty yellow sleep-gunk from his eyes and yank some of the knots out of his hair, ignoring Potya’s protests regarding his unsanctioned dawdling. As soon as Yuri dropped the brush back onto his desk and took a step towards the door, she abandoned her frantic figure-eights around his ankles and darted ahead of him.

“Spoiled brat.”

The soft clinking of dishes and cookware issued from the kitchen, giving Yuri a moment’s pause. Otabek must have started cooking breakfast. The question was, was he making it just for himself, or was he planning to surprise Yuri? Because, while Yuri certainly didn’t expect to be waited on like Her Most Exalted Supreme Highness Puma Tiger Scorpion Yuryevna Plisetskaya, he was equally reluctant to spoil any sweet gestures by forgetting that Otabek had proven his inclination towards chivalry on multiple occasions.

Okay, new plan.

Yuri peeked around the door, trying to see whether or not Otabek’s culinary project was a solo-bowl-of-cereal sort of deal. As long as he was sneaky about it, Yuri could assess the situation and decide if he should hightail it back to bed or stagger in, feed Potya, and then drape himself over Otabek until the kettle boiled again.

It wasn’t fast enough for Potya, who took it upon herself to put an end to Yuri’s calculations by vaulting through into the kitchen. She announced their arrival with a series of mournful yowls, pawing at the cabinet as she cast baleful gazes over her shoulder to make sure Yuri felt appropriate guilt about his cruel treatment of such a helpless, innocent creature.

So much for subtlety. Yuri rolled his eyes and straightened up as Otabek’s low voice filled the room.

“Hello, you weird gay slut.”

Yuri froze.

He must have heard it wrong. He only _thought_ Otabek had said _“hello, you weird gay slut,”_ and in a second his ears would wake up and sort out their nonsense and let him know that Otabek’s actual greeting had been something normal and charming like _“good morning”_ or _“what’s up, asshole?”_

He took a breath and went over the revised version, which was… nope, never mind, Otabek had definitely called him a weird gay slut. Which was fine. Funny. No reason to get upset. Neither of them cared about pointless shit like that anyway, and even if Yuri still had the urge to lobotomize himself with his own skates whenever he was reminded of the fiasco that was his ill-fated attempt at Operation Get Over Otabek You Pathetic Fuckhead, that was years ago.

Yuri’s face was heating up.

After thinking about it, righteous fury boiled over and brought Yuri to the conclusion that no, actually, _weird gay slut_ was absolutely not cool in any possible way. Weird? Sure. Gay? Close enough. But only Mila was allowed to call Yuri a slut, no exceptions whatsoever, and if Otabek had somehow convinced himself that the sacred bond formed by Mila chasing him around the locker room with condoms stretched over her arms and head as she shrieked like a demented sex demon was something that could be reproduced, they needed to sit down and have a nice long talk about boundaries.

Otabek stood at the stove with his back to Yuri. He hadn’t turned around or even acknowledged Yuri’s existence, aside from driving a fucking knife into his heart. Either he hadn’t realized his mistake, or, in the middle of the night, Otabek had been replaced with an evil clone that did stuff like kick puppies and call his boyfriend a weird gay slut.

Or maybe Yuri was overreacting. He vaguely recalled Leo de la Iglesia addressing Otabek with similar terms a few… well, a few dozen times, and it wasn’t like they were fighting or anything. There was a distinct possibility that Leo wasn’t even aware of the concept. It would be like asking a seagull if it understood modesty. Cruelty just wasn’t in his nature.

And for all their banter, it wasn’t in Otabek’s, either.

Right. Okay. Yuri would take a few seconds, chill out, and calmly explain that this was one playful insult that was less playful and more insulting. Hurtful, even. Then Otabek would apologize and they’d go on with the day having handled the situation like mature, reasonable adults.

But _really?_ Yuri must have spent several minutes standing on the threshold, frozen in confused, wounded shock, and Otabek hadn’t so much as looked at him. It was fucking obvious that something was wrong, but all Otabek did was stir his fucking porridge and watch Potya pry ineffectually at the cabinet door. He could at least give her food and let Yuri slink back to his room to sulk in peace.

Otabek was looking at Potya.

“Really, _xanşa_? Don’t lie to me.”

What the _fuck._

There was a tiny popping sound between Yuri’s ears as part of his brain melted. Otabek thought Yuri was lying to him? About _what?_ Had he heard something, or… and what the hell was _xanşa_? It sounded familiar, but whatever was responsible for remembering words had been a definite casualty of the explosion in Yuri’s head.

Otabek was looking at Potya, giving her that rare full-on beaming smile that revealed his dimples and the tooth he’d chipped in a fall before Four Continents last year. Yuri regularly spent days coaxing that smile out of Otabek.

Otabek was looking at Potya’s award-winning reprise of her starring role in _Cat, Weak With Hunger, Please, Good Sir, Show Mercy_ and smiling his everything-is-perfect smile and-

Oh.

Otabek hadn’t been talking to Yuri at all. Her Most Exalted Supreme Highness Puma Tiger Scorpion Yuryevna Plisetskaya was the alleged ‘weird gay slut,’ and Otabek didn’t have a clue that Yuri was standing just outside the kitchen and not curled up in bed.

A wave of dizziness washed over him. Relief.

Wait, no, not relief. Oxygen deprivation. The realization had knocked the air out of him. He was relieved, though. After all, his boyfriend hadn’t been replaced by an evil puppy-kicking clone-

Yuri blinked.

Otabek had called his cat a slut. He’d looked Her Most Exalted Supreme Highness Puma Tiger Scorpion Yuryevna Plisetskaya in the eyes and called her a weird gay slut, and okay, there was obviously some relationship rule everyone knew about that said _don’t call your boyfriend a weird gay slut,_ but did any laws encompass whether or not it was okay to call your boyfriend’s cat a weird gay slut?

That was a question for the authorities.

The clock over the stove read six minutes past seven. Yuri staggered back to bed on wobbly knees.

**Yuri:** wake up i have a question  
  
**Yuri:** its important  
  
**Yuri:** MILA  
  
**Mila:** what’s wrong??  
  
**Mila:** do you want me to call you   
  
**Yuri:** just. ok. so idfk  
  
**Mila:** otabek?  
  
**Yuri:** yeah i guess so  
  
**Mila:** yura, is everything ok?  
  
**Yuri:** what base is it for your boyfriend to call your cat a weird gay slut  
  
**Read** 7:12 AM Mila is typing...

“Mrrrp?” Potya stepped on Yuri’s floating ribs and headbutted his chin. “Mrrrrrrrew.” 

Her breath smelled like tuna. Yuri gaped at her.

“Oh my god. You’re _using_ me, you fluffy little whore. I can’t fucking believe you.”


End file.
